


Up From the Ashes

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: Covalent Bonds [9]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Gen, Other, Pesterlog, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Trollstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 12:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12211683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: -- uranianUmbra [UU] started trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --UU: hUllo! i hope i'm not distUrbing yoU?UU: i don't think we have talked like this before, so jUst in case, this is calliope! ^u^ i Used to be a cherUb.GA: Ah You Are The Muse Of Space OneGA: Not The Horrible OneUU: ^U^ hahaha! yes, yoU are qUite correct.UU: he *is* pretty horrible. i feel i shoUld apologize in advance for what i'm aboUt to ask yoU, even if yoU decline, becaUse my brother is a pain merely to contemplate as it is.GA: Rest Assured I Will Not Hold A Grudge Over Merely Having To Contemplate The Existence Of An Unpleasant PersonGA: If I Were The Kind Of Person Who Did My Contact List Would Be A Whole Lot EmptierGA: And My Life More Boring Though At Least Probably Simpler I SupposeGA: And Less AggravatingGA: UmGA: Ask Away





	Up From the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic like. THREE YEARS AGO or something??? ugh. uuugh, I say.
> 
> Anyway it won't make sense outside of Covalent settings so I'd advise you to read the previous fics.

\-- uranianUmbra [UU] started trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --

UU: hUllo! i hope i'm not distUrbing yoU?  
UU: i don't think we have talked like this before, so jUst in case, this is calliope! ^u^ i Used to be a cherUb.  
GA: Ah You Are The Muse Of Space One  
GA: Not The Horrible One  
UU: ^U^ hahaha! yes, yoU are qUite correct.  
UU: he *is* pretty horrible. i feel i shoUld apologize in advance for what i'm aboUt to ask yoU, even if yoU decline, becaUse my brother is a pain merely to contemplate as it is.  
GA: Rest Assured I Will Not Hold A Grudge Over Merely Having To Contemplate The Existence Of An Unpleasant Person  
GA: If I Were The Kind Of Person Who Did My Contact List Would Be A Whole Lot Emptier  
GA: And My Life More Boring Though At Least Probably Simpler I Suppose  
GA: And Less Aggravating  
GA: Um  
GA: Ask Away  
UU: i shoUld precise that i wanted to get to know yoU better entirely oUtside of any transaction!  
UU: it's jUst that this latest happenstance precipitated my need for someone of yoUr talents.  
GA: Yes  
GA: This Explanation Clarified Exactly Nothing But I Feel It Explained That Nothing Very Nicely  
UU: u_u;  
GA: I Think My Sarcasm Detector Has Gotten Calibrated Strangely From All That Time With Rose  
GA: My Apologies If I Inadvertently Misjudged It  
UU: no worries, i *was* rambling qUite a bit there!  
UU: alright! the short version.  
UU: i happen to be in need of clothes.  
UU: or more exactly, i do have clothes, they just happen to be qUite horrendoUsly bUllet-ridden.  
UU: also zombie-chewed. which makes them qUite hard to wear.  
UU: see, i did not have the knack of going intangible while bringing them along from the start, and as i have previoUsly said, my brother is a total berk.  
UU: oh, bUt i will be compensating yoU for yoUr hard work, of coUrse! it woUld be qUite selfish of me to presUme Upon oUr mUtUal acqUaintanceship that way.  
GA: Oh Its Okay I Do Own Quite A Few Metric Fucktons Of Fabrics I Would Never Use Without Someone Else To Use Them For  
UU: no, no, i insist! it's only natUral that I pay for laboUr and yoUr expertise as well as the materials Used.  
UU: it woUldn't feel right otherwise. :U  
GA: Okay Then  
GA: Whats Your Brothers Relevance To This  
GA: I Mean Apart From Causing The Bullet Holes But That Seems To Be Quite Done And Over With  
UU: oh, that. U_U;;;  
UU: see, the last time i left him alone in oUr hive, that gigantic plonker managed to breach oUr own defenses going looking for zombies to shoot. i foUnd him oUt of mUnitions in a precarioUs position on the roof with oUr hive totally overrUn! the cleanUp and repairs took *ages*.  
UU: so if it isn't too mUch of an imposition, i woUld prefer to bring him along, thoUgh it woUld be best if yoU had some kind of cellar or dUngeon-like room to stick him into for the dUration.  
UU: if yoU don't think yoU can handle his presence, i gUess i will jUst leave him home, bUt... :U  
GA: I  
GA: See  
GA: I Dont Have A Dungeon Sadly Enough  
GA: But I Do Have A Chainsaw  
GA: And Karkat Did Mention He Was Pulling For Eventual Rehabilitation Which I Think Is Hoping Way Too Much But I Wouldnt Like The Sad Barkbeast Faces He Would Make If I Didnt Even Try  
GA: So  
UU: ^u^!! thank yoU!!!!!!!!!!!  
GA: Come When Youre Ready I Guess  
UU: we'll be there in two minUtes. ^u^

\-- uranianUmbra [UU] stopped trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --

GA: Wait  
GA: I Didnt Mean  
GA: Oh Well I Guess I Will Stuff All My Precious Things In A Closet And Lock It Surely That Can Be Accomplished In Two Minutes  
GA: Dot Dot Dot  
GA: One Minute Now

\---

Kanaya isn't entirely sure what to expect when she opens the door of her hive to her two guests.

She was -- rather silly of her -- expecting green skull monsters, even though she has met them once before, at the oasis party. They're both delicate and pretty specimens of trollhood, with that odd resemblance between them that reminds her of seeing Rose in Dave at a squint. Short flyaway hair, on the wispy side, wavy like their horns. They would make delightful diamondthrob models; they have "pitiable" written all over them.

Calliope's nervous hopefulness works with it; Caliborn's nasty sneer only makes him look like he's trying too hard to compensate.

It's odd when Kanaya realizes that she's a head taller than either one of them.

"Hullo!" the girl says, her smile unveiling rather more surprisingly thick, dangerous fang than she means to, Kanaya thinks, from the friendliness in her voice. Kanaya smiles back, mouth pointedly closed.

"It's a pleasure to have you over. Please do come in."

"I don't want to fucking come in, and you can't make me!" Caliborn shrugs Calliope's hands off him and steps away from her -- forward, since she was behind him, and he almost encroaches into Kanaya's space. Kanaya narrows her eyes, considering. In a troll born she might consider it aggression; in an ex-cherub... well, it might still be aggression, but she would make both Karkat and Calliope sad if she dealt with it as decisively as she usually does.

The instinctive reflex to defend her personal space isn't even there; she would have to do it entirely deliberately. She guesses they _are_ crew, after all. Urgh.

"That's very unfortunate," she says as civilly as she can, "as I don't trust you out of my sight quite yet."

Chainsaws are hard to lug around, now that sylladexes and transforming weapons have stopped being a thing. She hefts up the one she put behind the door and revs it on.

"I suppose forcing you to walk might be tough, but separating you into two equal pieces would make you easier to carry."

He splutters. Calliope gasps, eyes wide.

"You wouldn't _do_ that."

She smiles, mouth closed, only her longest fangs peeking out. "Truly? Eridan thought that too."

Of course she wouldn't. It isn't like Caliborn has killed her or her friends and sabotaged their chances of winning the game --

Okay, it isn't like he has done it recently enough that she's still burning with rage and murderlust over it.

Calliope lets out a loud sigh. "We aren't going to stand around in Kanaya's doorway all night!"

Then she steps forward and gives Caliborn a good shove right between the shoulder blades. Kanaya steps back hurriedly, swinging her chainsaw out of the way. It's turned off, but you never know.

Caliborn whirls around the second he has regained his footing, snarling, but Calliope has already stepped inside and nudged the door closed behind her. It locks with a little click, on automatic.

Then she looks up at Kanaya and smiles at her, eyes sparkling and cheeks dimpling, and horrendously cute. "There!"

"You fucking _bitch!_ " Caliborn snarls, and charges at her -- and right _through_ her and into Kanaya's door. Bonk.

Calliope sighs with a sadness she certainly does not feel and says to Kanaya, confiding, "He _never_ learns."

He launches himself at his sister again. Kanaya, fighting the urge to step bodily between them, clears her throat.

"I would appreciate it if neither one of you caused any of my possessions to be broken."

Calliope blinks guilelessly, looks a little regretful; Caliborn ignores Kanaya entirely.

Kanaya snatches him by the collar before he can crash into a vase, and narrows her eyes at his sister thoughtfully.

"--Hey! Let go, you big fat glowy green--"

"Do you want clothes, or not?"

He twists his neck to glare at her, eyes still a perfect adolescent gray. The broken edge of his horn scratches at her wrist. "Not!"

Kanaya can already tell that this visit is going to be an exercise in juggling, and she isn't even allowed to handle them too visibly, and they have _no manners at all_. Clearly their lusus was not from a gregarious -- oh. Right. No lusus. Unless you count a few hours of _Gamzee_ lusus. Well, that explains everything.

"Oh?" she says, trying to sound innocent. Rose or Vriska would burst out laughing at how badly she does it. "But I thought you could tell that swimming in too-large clothes only makes you look much smaller and thinner. You should look into clothes that maximize your width and show off your shoulders."

Caliborn stops wriggling, though he stares at her doubtfully until she feels like she ought maybe to release him, if only because it's getting awkward holding him like this.

She lets go. He doesn't try to tackle anything. Good enough.

"... How the fuck. Do you mean that."

"Come with me, and I'll show you." Kanaya runs a professional eye down his frame. Certainly it's not going to be easy, but.

But he knows next to nothing about troll culture. At worst, she'll add spikes on his jacket shoulders, and won't tell him anything about how try-hard and defensive and half-feral-to-tame it'll make him look.

Feeling quite sneaky and maybe mildly evil, she herds him up to her sewing room. Calliope follows, hands behind her back, the picture of friendliness and innocence.

Kanaya digs out a catalogue of pitch fashion (she laboriously printed it herself off the internet image after image; fashion isn't something that grabs at enough trolls that the drones have any ready-made to deliver) and shoves him at it; then she picks up an armful of clothes for Calliope. 

For ten minutes or so it's... it's _quiet_. Sometimes one of them demands her attention, look at this, can you make me something like that, why not, and she explains how this or that shape will work with (or often, against) their body types, but whenever one of them tries to get her attention when she's already talking to the other one, she just clears her throat, and Calliope relents, Caliborn pretends he wasn't done looking anyway.

It goes well until she has Calliope on the little dais for ease of taking her measurements.

Then Caliborn gets bored.

At first he just wanders aimlessly, stares at her trinkets with a gimlet eye; Kanaya tries to keep an eye on him, but she has a mouth full of pins and hands tangled in measuring tape, and as long as he isn't trying to leave or break anything...

"I didn't peg you for someone who'd post her pornos in public," Caliborn says, behind her, and she pricks herself on the thumb. Calliope winces when she sees the beading blood. "Good going!"

Kanaya turns around and Caliborn has taken a picture off the wall and is peering at it with a strange, intense look -- delighted and shocked both, like he's _enjoying_ being shocked.

"What are you talking about?" Kanaya asks, taking a forcibly slow and measured step closer.

She recognizes the frame, though. Her and Rose -- taken back when Kanaya's matesprit was still human, but the Game trollified her features on the way out and the way their horns brush together on the verge of hooking together is, um, well. Not _that_ risqué!

She reaches for the picture. Caliborn whirls to keep it out of her reach, nastily triumphant. "Look at that! Your arms are all around that rotund bitch's waist."

Kanaya's face flushes. "It's true that the hold I have on Rose is rather -- rather intimate, but there's nothing indecent in there either, we are both fully clothed--"

"In that cuddly woolen cloth? Oooh, _nasty_. And the fatter bitch's chest pillows are spilling all. Over. Your arms. This is _obscene_."

He's making the kind of noises a troll usually utters only with his matesprit or with a good flushed porn movie.

Kanaya steps in with the sudden speed of a daywalker and snatches the picture out of his hand, and when he turns on her, snarling -- she leans right into his face, and she says, skin glowing, eyes thinned into slits, "I do not enjoy hearing you calling me or my matesprit bitches. Actually, I don't enjoy the word at all. You will stop using it."

"Or what?" he demands, crackling with eager tension. Calliope starts moving off her dais to intercept.

Kanaya waves her back, without looking. The day she needs someone to intercede on _her_ behalf...!

"Did you think I was joking about cutting you in two at the waist?" she asks, and she turns on her heel. She's angry and off-balance with all she wants to do -- slap him, kick him out and never bother with him again, cuff him and sit on him and lesson at him...

In the end he's just a brat, and no danger to her, and she refuses to waste her rage on him; he doesn't deserve one inch of it. Annoyance, maybe.

She walks to her desktop computer and wiggles the mouse to bring it back out of sleep mode.

From the corner of her eye she sees him floundering; he's not sure what to do with her offered back, with her sudden disregard. He was gearing up for a fight, and she's sure he's used to thinking of himself as fearsome, but...

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] started trolling caligulasAquarium [CA] --

GA: Eridan  
CA: holy fuck kan  
CA: wwhat uh  
CA: do you wwant  
CA: its been a wwhile since you deigned to talk to me at all wwoww  
CA: but wwhats a little murder between friends right  
CA: hey there wwhats up  
GA: I Am Still Not Talking To You  
GA: You Talk To Him

She turns to give Caliborn a steely glare. "Someone wants to talk to you."

CA: wwho an about wwhat

Caliborn scowls at her, but she can tell he's unsure, back-footed. Calliope is drifting closer, and Kanaya definitely doesn't want her too close; just her crowding Caliborn would get him thoughtless with anger again even if Calliope didn't say or do anything at all. Calliope wouldn't have to, she's obviously been needling him for days and he's primed to explode at the faintest breath.

Caliborn watches Kanaya sideways, but he sits, and then he grimaces. "Urgh, green. No."

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] is now undyingUmbrage [uu] ! --

UU: I DON'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA.  
UU: GREEN WOMEN ARE ALL CRAZY. IT'S THE FEMALE HORMONES. GETTING TO THEIR BRAINS.  
UU: SILLY BITCHES.  
CA: holy glbgolybs manifold embrace wwhy are you evven at kans hivve  
UU: MY SISTER. FORCED ME.  
UU: ANOTHER GREEN BITCH. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT.  
CA: uh huh  
CA: she readin over your shoulder aint she  
UU: YES. SO WHAT?  
CA: can you ask her wwhat she wwants me to talk to you about

Kanaya is serene again (she fumbled the picture into a drawer and locked it while he wasn't looking) and she smiles down at him, mouth closed, looming just a little. "I want you to check how much you should believe me when I threaten you."

UU: CRAZY SAYS. SHE WANTS ME SCARED. OF HER SILLY HYSTERICS. WHEN SHE THREATENS ME.  
UU: AS IF.  
UU: THAT WEAPON IS. OBVIOuSLY. TOO HEAVY FOR HER WEAK WOMANLY ARMS.  
UU: IT IS TOTALLY OBVIOuS SHE IS BLuFFING. HER STuPID GIRL FACE OFF.  
UU: HEY. PuRPLE FuCKER.  
UU: HEY!!!!  
CA: ljbjbbvvvvv  
UU: WHAT. IS THAT SuPPOSED TO MEAN.  
CA: YEAH SHES TOTALLY BLUFFIN  
CA: you should call her out on it  
CA: right noww  
CA: troll up an call her names to her face  
CA: do it noww or youre a rotten fish egg  
CA: do it do it do it do it 

Kanaya frowns. Alright, this is backfiring. She elbows Caliborn off the keyboard; he yells as he falls off the chair entirely. Whoops.

UU: Eridan It Has Been A Long Time Since We Met Is Your Home Address Still Current Hint Hint  
CA: wwelp  
CA: i wwas just kiddin kan no harm done right i mean hes the grand enemy its okay if wwe rib him a bit  
UU: Harrumph  
CA: okay fine sorry if you insist ill be the soul a niceness to the guppy  
UU: I Dont Want You Nice I Want You Truthful Be As Nasty As You Want Otherwise  
UU: But If I Were You I Would Not Throw The Proverbial First Solidified Lava Fragment Too Far  
CA: if its too far from me then i havve nothin to fear from it right  
UU: Um  
UU: Right  
UU: I Suppose In This Case We Might Say It Might Fly So Far It Will Circle The Whole Planet And Come To Hit You From Behind  
CA: you still havve some issues wwith snappy comebacks huh  
UU: Chainsaw  
CA: OKAY OKAY hand ovver the keyboard to the freak

She leans back and waves Caliborn back to the chair. He snarls. "Are you fucking crazy?!"

"Yes," she replies serenely, "and if you want to know how much, you should ask Eridan again. He's ready to be truthful now." Calliope comes to a stop at Kanaya's side, leans forward, and Kanaya refrains from sighing. "Calliope, let's go back to the podium, please."

She takes her by the elbow and walks her back there. She has to redo all the measurements, since the whole kerfuffle drove them out of her head. Calliope keeps throwing Caliborn curious glances.

Kanaya resists the urge to nudge her around until the girl has got her back on him and can't spy on him with the fascinated intensity of a meowbeast at a skitterbeast's hole. It'd be too much meddling, and she hasn't been invited to. Curbing Caliborn's behavior is one thing; he's in her hive, it's her right to control him, or cull him if she fails or gets bored with it. Getting in the middle of his and Calliope's... thing...

... Even though, as Caliborn comes back warier, sulky-quieter, and Kanaya convinces him to shed a few layers so she can measure him -- as Calliope watches -- Kanaya feels more and more like...

... Something is off between them. It's not just that they're a bit young; they could still exchange slaps and biting kisses even if they weren't ready to, ah, consummate.

A few minutes later, listening thoughtlessly to Caliborn's endless, monotonous bitching and Calliope's fake-conciliatory needling, she pins it down.

Calliope blushes when Caliborn ends up shirtless.

Caliborn doesn't.

(He doesn't notice Calliope's reactions, either.)

Kanaya reaches the end of her awkward rope when Caliborn tries to puff himself out of something she's still tailoring onto him -- like tearing out of his clothes counts as impressive when they're holding together with two straight pins and a bit of string -- and she pricks him by accident, good and proper, and it beads bright, bestial red.

Her own hunger is something she expected -- that still distracts her -- but the breathless, aroused trill that comes from behind her...

No. She refuses. As Dave says, she is noping out of this clusterfuck. _Right. Now_.

"My apologies Caliborn I obviously need stronger cloth to contain your impressive-um-impressiveness," she shoots out with barely a drawn breath, and marches Calliope straight out of the room, a hand tight around her (bird-thin) upper arm.

"Um, I beg your pardon?" Calliope stammers as Kanaya ushers her down the spiral stairs, face flushed a betraying yellow-green.

Kanaya lets her go at the next level down and then turns to face her, pretty sure that she must be a matching, if deeper green.

"It is none of my business," she starts, and that's entirely right, it very much isn't, "and I have been doing so good recently not meddling when I'm not wanted that I must tell you -- it is none of my business, but have you noticed that you." Um. "That. Things that are not... my business, so I would rather, oh, bother. Fuck."

Calliope laughs, but it's not bell-like and charmingly shy, it's shrill, entirely unnerved, and she turns her head to look at their surroundings for a change of topic rather desperately.

Which. No.

"I know that you have not been a troll for long," Kanaya says, "so I will tell you gently, from a place of platonic care and. Shit. No. Wait. Okay. I will tell you because this is my hive and it's not appropriate to make noises like that around people who are not involved in your... Your... Your reason to make them. If you understand my meaning."

Calliope understands. Calliope understands so well that she lets out a (pitiful) groan and then sinks into a crouch, hands pressed on her face.

"Uuuugh, I don't mean to make them! They just happen!"

"Oh. Well. That's embarrassing."

"Yes!" Calliope snarls up, surprisingly thick fangs bared. "Yes, it's embarrassing, and stupid, and -- and disturbing and I don't like it except for all the ways it feels like it'd be good if I just completely gave up control and then -- and then what?! I don't even know what!"

Kanaya blinks slowly. "Do you honestly not know why."

"... I... technically know why," Calliope mutters, and sinks into her knees again. "I write fanfic," she adds, face down, muffled. "Lots of fanfic. Lots and lots and _lots_ of fanfic. I write it from online encyclopedias and other people's stories and maybe some hints Roxy slipped me here and there. Not from -- from. I'm not even an adult."

It occurs to Kanaya that she has no idea what happens to cherubs at puberty.

"What happens once you're an adult?" she asks, morbidly curious. "I mean, if you had stayed... You know."

"A cherub? Nothing save for growing our wings, until another cherub wanders through our territory, and if we're the right combination of genders together, we both trigger each other into our breeding morph and fight it out until one of us is gravid."

Her face is still pressed against her knees, her horns pointed inadvertently at Kanaya's knees. Kanaya looks away, uncomfortable with her glimpses of the thin nape of Calliope's neck amidst flyaway dark hair, thoughtlessly offered.

"Right... Combination... of...?"

"Protective-destructive, male-female." She waves a hand in the air, half-heartedly. "It's not always the same combination that the two of us... Well, I suppose it doesn't matter any longer. The point is... The point is, we don't... _Want_ that. Until we're in our mating forms. We don't want it." She looks up then, dark eyebrows scrunched in anguish. "And now I don't know..."

"Hm."

"Mmm."

"Huh."

"Help?" the ex-cherub says, looking small and miserable and kinda see-sawing Kanaya's feelings in entirely the wrong direction, for a short handful of seconds.

In fact it reminds her of certain humans of her acquaintance using ancient 'pity me I'm a sad sack of can't cook and deserve some of your dinner' techniques. Okay, mostly Dave. Rose doesn't try to invoke her sympathy so openly at all unless she's playing coy and planning some kind of sexy and vaguely pitch-sprinkled ambush.

Anyway long story short while being needed is always validating, it's frustrating to be presumed upon so much.

Which is... probably a feeling she should hold onto, if she wants this not to get _really_ weird.

"Are you aware, exactly, of what you're asking me to do?"

The shade Calliope turns is fascinating -- Kanaya has a brief moment of wondering how it would taste, this golden-green like sunlight through leaves. "Um."

They stare at each other for a second. 

"Um. Yes. I. Please help."

"I should have known," Caliborn sneers from the middle of the staircase at Kanaya's back, head just starting to pop out over the railing. "That you bitches would be in cahoots."

... 

... Well on the bright side if Kanaya agrees to this then she can actually enforce her language preferences. 

She draws herself up and glares. "One, I have told you not to call me that. Two, we are not in cahoots. If I give my assistance in this matter it will be to both of you."

And also it won't be mere cahoots, it will be an actual -- um. Oh good lord. Fuck. The one quadrant that she's always drawn to, because she's a ridiculous meddler deep down, and that she always messes up.

Can this really get any worse, though.

Caliborn frowns, suspicion all over his squinty little face. "What matter?"

... Ugh. Kanaya glances at Calliope, but while she's gotten back up on her feet her eyes still slide away from the both of them. She's not going to answer that one.

"The matter of your constant hostility while trying to live in the same hive," she settles on eventually.

"Don't sissify it with stupid words like 'hostility'," he sneers, trying to take on his sister's lilting tones. "They're murder attempts!"

... Yes, he definitely doesn't... see her as a potential kismesis. Then again, he is severely socially stunted. Not even Vriska would miss it -- but Vriska's issues are very different; for one she never assumes that people _aren't_ totally enraptured with her -- and anyway. Caliborn might be a jerk generally speaking but there's nothing wrong with not seeing someone concupiscently.

But if Caliborn catches on to it he's going to laugh and jeer and generally hold it over Calliope's head until she is driven to murder. Which leads straight to peace, quiet, a markedly lower risk of getting the wrong kind of outsider attention, and Karkat's disappointed face.

"Have you thought of what would happen if you succeeded?" she asks, resisting the urge to press a hand to the bridge of her nose for all of two seconds.

"I'd be without her ugly face and stupid whining in my business!"

"Oh, you mean stranded in the middle of the desert being eaten by zombies," Kanaya points out almost gently, her palm pushing at Calliope's face.

Calliope jerks back, fangs clacking by reflex, but Kanaya was expecting it and pulls her hand away safely. Later they'll have a talk about what sort of truths will be better coming from the middle leaf than from one of the angry, not-listening parties, because coming from Calliope that was definitely not going to be helpful in the least.

"If you think I'm not going to find a way to escape--"

"I am not interested in stopping you escaping," Kanaya snaps over him. He's still standing on the stairs like he thinks it makes him more impressive to need four steps up before his head is above hers. "I'm interested in you _not dying_. If you can escape safely and live your own life, then good! I'm glad for you! But in the meantime neither one of you will be killing the other one, or the survivor will _answer to me_."

"... Which means?" Calliope asks. "Um. Concretely speaking."

Kanaya draws herself up, and draws onto every single memory of the implacable marble beauties from her favorite novels. "If I estimate that you were not acting in self-defense then I will avenge the other one. Either you will both live, _or you will both die_."

She feels ridiculously theatric, certain that she overplayed it outrageously. They stare at her wide-eyed.

"Um... Seriously?" Calliope gives a nervous laugh.

"Do you think quadrants are something I joke about," Kanaya growls, low and vibrating with the full strength of her annoyance at Caliborn's open disrespect, at Calliope's subtler manipulations.

"--Who's talking about _quadrants_ ," Caliborn yelps, voice gratifyingly high-pitched. "Who's talking about. No! I hate all troll things."

"Auspisticism is one of the hate ones," Kanaya says drolly, shoulders sagging. Ugh. It figures.

"--Oh." He considers it, frowning. "No, wait, that still sucks."

"Be that as it may, until you give me a good reason to disengage from this conflict, it's what will happen. I only need the consent of one of the parties to set this up."

Well. For the emergency first contact -- that is, today, or maybe an actual murder attempt in progress -- she can act on her own cognizance and a one-sided invitation, but. If Caliborn doesn't accept this, it's... It's not going to last. She can advise Calliope as much as they both want, but it won't make them auspistices.

... She doesn't want it to last, does it? God, she needs a moirail. Three moirails. A pack of them, to drag her away from boneheaded, rage-fueled decisions and nosey fussing and over-involvement --

"What the fuck even would you do. Get in the middle of our fights? Stupid. Like that'd stop me."

"It'd be stupid mostly because it's _pointless_ , because you can't touch me," Calliope points out with a tight, close-mouthed smile. "Remember? Nothing you try against me _works_ \--"

"Calliope," Kanaya says sternly. "Don't needle him. He doesn't need to physically harm you to cause you trouble -- or did you come bother me for new clothes you didn't actually need?"

"Um."

Caliborn grins at her chastised face. Kanaya narrows her eyes, and then sighs, and keeps talking before he starts insulting her again and they devolve into childish insults and thrown keepsakes. God, it's going to be tiresome. "We will start with listening to your grievances -- which means, yes, Caliborn, I will listen to you bitch about your sister as much as you want. Separately!" she adds hurriedly as he opens his mouth. "Then later I will set you two some rules so you can lessen pointless conflict, and if you get too angry and need a distraction I will -- I will take you on dates."

They both blink, visibly thrown. Kanaya clears her throat, tries not to blush any worse. They're not that much younger -- only one sweep, it barely counts -- but so ignorant that it makes Kanaya feel odd. It's almost like taking advantage of a feral troll.

"I mean. Ashen dates are mostly going out to break things and maybe hunt, or. Distractions. At least early in, when you're nowhere near ready to spend time together."

"I'm _never_ going to be ready to spend time with _her_ ," Caliborn growls, but when he crosses his arms he looks at Kanaya next, eyebrows scrunched almost in ... intrigue, or confusion. "What kind of hunting."

"Zombies?" Kanaya says without thinking, blinking. Oh. "Um. I'm not much for hunting animals but we could do that too..." 

He still looks dissatisfied. Kanaya tries her hand at blatant manipulation.

"Not that I think you're ready for cholerbear hunting but we could work up to--"

"I will fucking murder every single cholerbear there is to find on this. _Fucking._ Planet. And I will do it now!"

Calliope snorts; Kanaya puts a quelling hand on her arm, feels a little twinge of proprietary satisfaction when she keeps whatever pointed comment she was about to make behind her teeth.

"Alone, or will you need anyone to show you to the cholerbears first?" Caliborn glares, like he thinks she was mocking him. Kanaya clears her throat. "Maybe I can provide some form of transportation?"

For a long moment there's silence, and suspicious glaring -- gray eyes with widening beast-red cracks going from Kanaya to Calliope and then back.

"And you'll listen to me bitch."

"Yes."

"And not. _Take_ sides."

"I promise I will be equally exasperated with you both," Kanaya sighs, and wishes it was still an hour ago and she could tell Calliope she can't entertain visitors today after all, but with a resigned kind of edge. "And I'm not stupid and I can tell when someone is provoking the other one to get them in trouble, so _don't try that_."

She makes sure to glare at them both in turn. She'll have to deal with them trying that probably five times today alone, she knows it with almost magical certainty. She should have been a Seer of... of. Something that presides over romance and idiots, probably. What aspect even is that?

"You can show me the cholerbears," Caliborn allows, arms crossed over his scrawny bare chest. "So I can murder them. But not _romantically_. I'll let you be my dealing-with-the-bitch minion," he adds, like he's doing her a favor.

Kanaya's spine straightens with a prickle of actual, personal dislike. She narrows her eyes, glow intensifying slightly. Caliborn's shoulders tense like he just remembered she's actually a threat and he has no weapons -- not like he would run if she attacked but like maybe right now he wasn't quite as ready for violence as he is when he's the one who's starting it. 

" _It's a date_ ," Kanaya says pointedly, fang tips showing through.

After Denizens, cholerbears are probably going to be a walk in the park. The one she's not sure will survive the outing is Caliborn. But if he pushes her that far, at least the problem he represents will be _settled_.

"Now let's go back to clothing the both of you. I will not be quadranted to a pair of nudists."

"We're not quadranted at all," Caliborn mutters under his breath as he turns around and stomps back up the stairs. Kanaya shepherds Calliope ahead of herself on the staircase, pretending not to see the girl giggling in her hands.

"I'm sorry I brought that great berk to your place, Kanaya," she apologizes later when they're ready to leave, packages spilling out of her arms. "Thank you for being so patient."

"No, you're not," Kanaya replies, and tugs her collar into alignment. Caliborn is waiting a few steps farther, out of easy grabbing range so Calliope will have to chase him if she wants to teleport him along back to their hive. "I'm not saying you planned it, but you are really, _really_ not sorry."

Calliope grins, cheeks dimpling, thick fangs on display. "I'm really, really not. Later -- my dear?"

Ugh. Why do all of Kanaya's quadrants attract bloodpusher-strings-tugging, twisty, unreasonably charming broads. Calliope is trying out the endearment with the excitement of a much-younger troll who's only ever heard it on TV. "Later, ashling. I will expect a report on your situation tomorrow, the both of you!"

"Will do!" Calliope promises, and lunges for her brother while he's still scoffing.

\--

\-- undyingUmbrage [uu] started trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --

UU: HYPOTHETICAL QuESTION.  
GA: Hypothetically No

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Up From the Ashes [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052712) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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